On 2011-02-13, Don Foreman wrote:
On Sat, 12 Feb 2011 07:41:17 -0600, Ignoramus15263
wrote:

Has anyone tried zinc plating stuff at home, and if so, how successful
was it. I was reading about this and I am not sure if this is a risky
procesude in the sense of getting a bad result, or not. THanks

I zinc plate a lot of my steel projects, particularly those with
metal-to-metal contact. It's quite easy to do if you can follow
simple directions. I use materials from Caswell Plating. I would just
buy the zinc plating solution, a zinc anode or two, and some zinc
brightener.

www.caswellplating.com

I designed and built an adjustable constant-current supply. It can be
set anywhere from 10 mA to 1.5 amps -- most of my projects are small
enough to easily fit in a 2-gallon bucket. Before I made that supply
I used a variac, battery charger and ammeter.

I've been using the same chemicals for at least 5 years. The zinc
brightener needs to be replenished periodically if you want bright
zinc, but it only takes a few ml. Zinc eventually gets dull anyway so
I don't worry much about having it initially bright -- but if you
follow directions and replenish the brightener your zinc will be as
bright as commercial hardware.


Thanks, Don. I will give that kit a try.

i